A Great Miss Marple

The washing machine is being delivered, hopefully today, (That's yesterday) Appliances OnLine. They'll take the old machine away too.

I don't have to go to the shop, twiddle the dials, and pretend anything, all the time thinking they all look alike. Big, white, square, what am I supposed to be looking at?

The digger keeps whirring away three doors up. The sad queens are renovating their house. But, what the fuck are they digging? That digger/bobcat has been whirring constantly for days. They gutted the house, nothing left but the front wall. I just know it is going to be some clichéd monstrosity, glass and granite and stainless steel. They have kept nothing of the old, they have wiped that cute cottage right off the heritage patina of Fitzroy. You have to keep some of the old, just so you remember where you have been.

9am. Then I watched Paul Lynde on YouTube. Celebrity Squares. Hysterical.

11am. Buddy, as if by clockwork, gets up and goes to his kennel.

I wonder if the new washing machine will fit in the front gate, now that (name of old woman. She was your… oh, what is the gorilla lady’s name? Jan Goodall. She had a touch of the Jane Goodalls about her, not, quite, with the same sense of direction, I'd add. Oh, oh, she’d have made a great Miss Marple. Let's hope her eye sight is up to the job) has narrowed the opening effectively with the gate now being inoperable. I wonder if they’ll be able to bring it in the back way and over the stairs halfway up the garden.

Oh, that’ll be the next thing, they won’t be able to deliver it at all and what has been relatively painless, will become the insurmountable problem.

The doorbell rings. The washing machine arrives at 11.11am. And there it is already at the front door on a trolley. I remind them they have to take away the old machine, and they do that first.

And while they were installing it, Sam PDF a copy of the user’s manual. I replied, Kill Me Now!” Then, I invited him home to put on some washing. Read all of that? How hard can it be? A few buttons, surely.

And then it is installed, no problems. There it is in the laundry. The rather cute looking Mohammad, with his hairy butt crack, and his pale blue bonds undies, nose twitch as soon as he smiles at me, it happens involuntarily, is gone as fast as he comes. Too pervy?

Mohammad hits the go button. “That’s a drum clean load,” were his parting words. The machine whirs into life.

Appliances on line, the shops haven’t got a hope.

Well, having said that, we’re pretty smart. So, we worked out what machine we wanted. We learned that front loaders use less power and less water than top loaders. We wanted roughly the same size, 8.5 kilos, hot and cold water capable, there aren’t too many that come with that feature now, so it narrowed down our choices. I wash in cold, but that doesn’t mean everybody wants to wash in cold. The highest water rating, 4.5 stars, the highest energy rating, 4 stars, we traded off half a star in energy efficiency for $1000 in price. The only brand that satisfies all of that criteria was Fisher & Paykel. So, we knew what we wanted. Sam price matched with some shop that had it on sale, so we got the sale price on line too. How many people go to the shop and let the salesperson pick the machine for them? The shops are safe, half the population, nay three quarters, is stupid.

I let Buddy in. “Buddy come in there is a new thing you are completely unaware of inside.”

Buddy heads inside straight to the kitchen, that is hardly surprising that is where his bowl is, he walks straight passed and walks straight to the new washing machine, and he never goes to the laundry, in fact he normally avoids the walkway in front of the laundry, and he stands there and sniffs the new machine and then looks at me.

No, I knew there was something new, I could smell it all along. A dog’s super sense.

It turns out, I’d been over thinking the security camera issue, the camera turns, it is one of its features, you can point it anywhere you like. It points up the back garden really easily.

The expected messages did arrive.

I suppose you think you are very funny?

What is wrong with you?